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Jon and Rhaegar comparison- in songs, in blood, in tragedy


The Fattest Leech

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9 minutes ago, The Fattest Leech said:

True, it is what lead to the NW mutiny, but I am tempted to start another thread (:o) that shows that Thorne has been planning something against Jon and the Starks since back in Storm of Swords. I think it was @dornishdame that also shares this idea???? I have to also admit that I do not think Jon is dead-dead and he has some worthy healers around him to help him both physically and spiritually.

It's certainly an idea I share .. but I'd say going right back to AGoT... Thorne set Jon's peers against him, dangerously ... goaded him into drawing a knife on an officer..etc. This is now an old thread, but I'd still change only a few minor details now... 

 

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1 minute ago, bemused said:

It's certainly an idea I share .. but I'd say going right back to AGoT... Thorne set Jon's peers against him, dangerously ... goaded him into drawing a knife on an officer..etc. This is now an old thread, but I'd still change only a few minor details now... 

 

Oh, maybe it was you then? My sincere apologies if I mixed that up :blushing:. I have been confusing things lately and I don't know why???

Thank you for the thread link. My searches never had that pop up. I am super excited to read it. I love your threads... and that one in particular;)

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4 minutes ago, bemused said:

It's certainly an idea I share .. but I'd say going right back to AGoT... Thorne set Jon's peers against him, dangerously ... goaded him into drawing a knife on an officer..etc. This is now an old thread, but I'd still change only a few minor details now... 

 

AAAH! It is closed, but I see it is from 2013. Hmmm.

I am reading it now anyway.

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44 minutes ago, The Fattest Leech said:

Oh, maybe it was you then? My sincere apologies if I mixed that up :blushing:. I have been confusing things lately and I don't know why???

Thank you for the thread link. My searches never had that pop up. I am super excited to read it. I love your threads... and that one in particular;)

 Oh I didn't mean to imply that you screwed up.. I was just saying "me too". I think Julia H was mentioning some of that stuff on a thread you and I were both active on, recently (maybe you were thinking of her)... and certainly she and I both discussed Thorne at length on the later Jon Re-read threads here .. 

It takes very little to get me started on Thorne..:rolleyes:

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46 minutes ago, bemused said:

 Oh I didn't mean to imply that you screwed up.. I was just saying "me too". I think Julia H was mentioning some of that stuff on a thread you and I were both active on, recently (maybe you were thinking of her)... and certainly she and I both discussed Thorne at length on the later Jon Re-read threads here .. 

It takes very little to get me started on Thorne..:rolleyes:

Ok. I'm trying to make dinner for he family unit but I keep going back to that thread. I would love so see any updates comments on that. If you ever reopen a thread like that, let me know. 

Does this mean Bowen Marsh = Robert Baratheon??? (I'm kidding)  

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23 hours ago, The Fattest Leech said:

I love this play on words with the Summer/Winter and hall/fell. There is something else I discovered about this while working on my Nymeria thread. I swear, every time I work on something in this world, something else comes screaming at me unexpectedly. Another ice and fire relation from the World book:

  • Archmaester Brude, who was born and raised in the shadow city that huddles beneath the crumbling walls of Sunspear, once famously observed that Dorne has more in common with the distant North than either does with the realms that lie between them. "One is hot and one is cold, yet these ancient kingdoms of sand and snow are set apart from the rest of Westeros by history, culture, and tradition. Both are thinly peopled, compared to the lands betwixt. Both cling stubbornly to their own laws and their own traditions. Neither was ever truly conquered by the dragons. The King in the North accepted Aegon Targaryen as his overlord peaceably, whilst Dorne resisted the might of the Targaryens valiantly for almost two hundred years, before finally submitting to the Iron Throne through marriage. Dornishmen and Northmen alike are derided as savages by the ignorant of the five 'civilized' kingdoms, and celebrated for their valor by those who have crossed swords with them."

That's an interesting find, and quite apt.  Again we are given the image of 'the shadow city huddling beneath the crumbling walls of Sunspear'-- in other words another in the shadow of the sun!  Regarding the similarities of snow and sand, depending on ones interpretation, couldn't Jon's bastard names be either 'Snow' or 'Sand'?

23 hours ago, The Fattest Leech said:
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In this context, it's interesting that Rhaegar is said to have been 'haunted' by Summerhall, in the same way that Ned is haunted by the Tower of Joy (we know this from the insistent shades of the dead which visit him at crucial moments) and Jon is haunted by his Winterfell crypt dreams:

This is a great find and relation. I may add this to the main post. Thank you.

With pleasure!

23 hours ago, The Fattest Leech said:

Come back and join in anytime :thumbsup:

Thanks for the warm welcome!  Likewise, please do re-join us on our attempted revival of 'Bran's growing powers.'  Have you read my 'plucking' essay; I briefly referenced your 'pinocchio' observations over there?!

 

23 hours ago, The Fattest Leech said:

The contribution by @dornishdame was amazing. It really helped move things along. I am only now realizing how important Jaime will be to the story ending and it will be for a bigger cause, and not that horrible iron monstrosity in KL.

There's definitely a suggestion that Jaime has a Bloodraven/old gods/(?time-travelling) Bran connection.  Recently, I found some more color-coded foreshadowing that Jaime will abandon Cersei in favor of her opponents:

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A Feast for Crows - Jaime III

"Robert's beard was black. Mine is gold."

"Gold? Or silver?" Cersei plucked a hair from beneath his chin and held it up. It was grey. "All the color is draining out of you, brother. You've become a ghost of what you were, a pale crippled thing. And so bloodless, always in white." She flicked the hair away. "I prefer you garbed in crimson and gold."

There's an albino Bloodraven connection in the observation that 'all the color is draining out of you...you've become a ghost...so bloodless, always in white'; 'a pale crippled thing' could refer to both Bran and Bloodraven impaled in their pale weirwood network in the dark hollow of the imagination.  Most intriguingly, Jaime is foreshadowed to go over to the Targaryen side with the reference of gold turning to silver -- silver being the Targaryen metal and hair-color vs. Lannister gold equivalents.

On 8/10/2016 at 3:58 PM, bemused said:

"armoured in snow"

Perhaps unrelated, but this reminds me of Jon's dream where he's armored in ice, mirrored by Dany's dream where she's facing off against an army of ice.  There's also a relationship to both the weirwoods and the white walkers:

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A Storm of Swords - Daenerys III

That night she dreamt that she was Rhaegar, riding to the Trident. But she was mounted on a dragon, not a horse. When she saw the Usurper's rebel host across the river they were armored all in ice, but she bathed them in dragonfire and they melted away like dew and turned the Trident into a torrent. Some small part of her knew that she was dreaming, but another part exulted. This is how it was meant to be. The other was a nightmare, and I have only now awakened.

 

A Dance with Dragons - Prologue

He could see the humped shapes of other huts buried beneath drifts of snow, and beyond them the pale shadow of a weirwood armored in ice. To the south and west the hills were a vast white wilderness where nothing moved except the blowing snow. "Thistle," Varamyr called feebly, wondering how far she could have gone. "Thistle. Woman. Where are you?"

Far away, a wolf gave howl.

 

A Dance with Dragons - Jon XII

Burning shafts hissed upward, trailing tongues of fire. Scarecrow brothers tumbled down, black cloaks ablaze. "Snow," an eagle cried, as foemen scuttled up the ice like spiders. Jon was armored in black ice, but his blade burned red in his fist. As the dead men reached the top of the Wall he sent them down to die again. He slew a greybeard and a beardless boy, a giant, a gaunt man with filed teeth, a girl with thick red hair. Too late he recognized Ygritte. She was gone as quick as she'd appeared.

 

A Game of Thrones - Prologue

It was cold. Shivering, Will clung more tightly to his perch. His face pressed hard against the trunk of the sentinel. He could feel the sweet, sticky sap on his cheek.

A shadow emerged from the dark of the wood. It stood in front of Royce. Tall, it was, and gaunt and hard as old bones, with flesh pale as milk. Its armor seemed to change color as it moved; here it was white as new-fallen snow, there black as shadow, everywhere dappled with the deep grey-green of the trees. The patterns ran like moonlight on water with every step it took.

On 8/10/2016 at 3:58 PM, bemused said:

I love the wealth of meaning in his thought after he's awakened..  The moonlight glimmered pale upon the stump where Jaime had rested his head. The moss covered it so thickly he had not noticed before, but now he saw that the wood was white. It made him think of Winterfell, and Ned Stark’s heart tree. It was not him, he thought. It was never him. But the stump was dead and so was Stark and so were all the others, Prince Rhaegar and Ser Arthur and the children. And Aerys. Aerys is most dead of all.

... and that... his head was pounding where he’d pillowed it against the stump... (something had been pounded into his head ?)

It was not Ned's, never Ned's, judgement that was so cutting. That only reflects his own inner judgement of himself.. And it can simultaneously refer to the fact that Ned is not Jon's father. The seed of that knowledge has been planted, and Jaime may be set to act as protector, whether he knows it or not. (It may just seem the right thing to do.)

And I think it will be Jon he will try to defend ... I have a .. theory?.. feeling?.. that the very old magical / first men bloodlines will come together to support Jon , and I can't help noticing that near the beginning of his dream, Jaime asks... “What place is this?”
Your place.” The voice echoed; it was a hundred voices, a thousand, the voices of all the Lannisters since Lann the Clever, who’d lived at the dawn of days.

It will be "his place" to try to defend Rhaegar's child, and the magic will be drawing him in that direction

This analysis is lovely!  I wrote something similar yesterday on the 'Bran's growing powers re-read' thread, regarding how the stump against his head may have facilitated the opening of Jaime's third eye.  So, your highlighting of how his head was 'pounding where he'd pillowed it against the stump,' with the implication that the stump itself had pounded something into his head, is so perfect, evoking as it does the crow pounding/pecking like a little insistent hammer into Bran's forehead during his coma dream, in order to awaken the spiritual potential of his third eye!  I also love how you combine the hammer allusion with the imagery of 'planting a seed,' whereby the hammer/crow's beak would function as a hoe in order to plant the seed of knowledge and awaken something in his brain.  In line with this, I'm thinking of Seams and Feather Crystal's notion of how people like swords are forged between symbolic hammer and anvil.  The 'pounding stump' evokes both the hammer and anvil between which Jaime is being forged -- emblematic of his spiritual transformation.  Ironically he's being fashioned as a 'sword' who will be instrumental in the battle of the future at the very moment he's lost his old 'swordhand'!

Your interpretation of 'it was not him, he thought. it was never him.  But the stump was dead...' is perceptive.  I agree that it on one level refers to Ned, Rhaegar and the mystery of Jon's paternity, as well as Jaime's embattled conscience.  There is an additional layer of irony contained in the persona of the 'pounding stump.'  'The dead stump' is, among other interpretations, an allusion to someone's progeny, and the potential power inherent in those children with respect to the playing field of the future (represented by the branches of the 'family tree'). For example, Tywin's de facto murder of the Targaryen children facilitated by Jaime's complicity was an attempt to cut off Aerys's line, as one might fell a tree (Tywin hated his former master and desired to reduce him and his House to a stump of its former glory). However, we've been told that if one does not pluck out someone's family line 'root and stem' (not coincidentally, this also refers to male potency), that power is not fully eradicated. Although I'm not a fan of the theory, should A+J=T however turn out to be true, how ironic that Tywin was outwitted and outlived by the 'stump' -- an allusion to Tyrion's stunted physique -- he left behind. 

A stump is not dead-- as long as its roots are vital, it contains the future and past acorn, sapling and tree.  Tyrion tells Jaime in AGOT, after Jaime's thrown Bran from the window, that being crippled is not synonymous with death, nor is death desirable when 'life is so full of possibilities'(paraphrased). The weirwood presence Jaime can feel is the person he himself reduced to a stump of his former self, thereby precipitating the events which led to Jaime's own cutting-down-to-size embodied in the stump of his former hand -- the person to whom he's inextricably linked in this saga-- Bran.  In short, because he threw Bran out of that window, Bran opened his third eye and was symbolically forged anew, allowing Bran in turn to open the window for Jaime's spiritual transformation (what is commonly termed Jaime's 'redemption arc') triggered at this turning point for Jaime by the weirwood dream.

According to my interpretation of the weirwood dream, the two pale riders which Jaime sees wreathed in mist (a typical Bloodraven proxy) and heralding the procession of the others may be Bran and Bloodraven on a greenseeing 'trip' together, riding in to Jaime's consciousness via the weirwood vector.  When Jaime asks, 'Is that you Stark...' he's almost right, only mistaken as to the Stark in question:  it's Bran not Ned sending him this dream; Bran not Ned with whom he has unfinished business!  It's an additional painful irony that Jaime declares bombastically that he never feared him alive nor dead, considering how nonchalantly Jaime threw Bran from that tower in order to extinguish his life and silence him forever.  Instead, Bran has returned to haunt Jaime, with whom as I've intimated he's caught up in an intimate karmic cycle of destiny.

Regarding Jaime's future 'place,' I agree he will align himself in order to make right with Houses Targaryen and Stark.  However, I'm not so sure 'his place' in the dream is necessarily located under Casterly Rock nor has anything to do with the Lannisters per se.  Cersei, Tywin and the rest of the Lannisters affirm that this Rock is not their place, it's his place, Jaime's place, therefore it is not the seat of the Lannisters.  Jaime also confirms this via his intuition that the beast in question lurking in the watery depths is not a lion, nor direwolf, nor bear.  So, what is this Rock; and who is the beast beneath the waters?

I posit that the Rock in question is the Red Rock into which Aegon built the Red Keep.  The dungeonous depths are the Red Keep Dungeons harboring all their 'secrets of the dragon.'  The 'doom' Jaime senses is the shadow of the Doom hanging over House Targaryen.  In fact, in another passage remarkably similar to the weirwood dream Jaime has already plumbed the depths of the Red Keep, encountering both a beast and a Waters.  Initially, he goes down searching for one dragon -- Varys -- only to find another -- the dragon brazier and the three-headed dragon mosaic -- who addresses him (a bit like a talking weirwood tree) and reminds him of yet other dragons he's wronged:

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Jaime wondered where Varys was hiding. Wisely, the master of whisperers had not returned to his own chambers, nor had a search of the Red Keep turned him up. It might be that the eunuch had taken ship with Tyrion, rather than remain to answer awkward questions. If so, the two of them were well out to sea by now, sharing a flagon of Arbor gold in the cabin of a galley.

Unless my brother murdered Varys too, and left his corpse to rot beneath the castle. Down there, it might be years before his bones were found. Jaime had led a dozen guards below, with torches and ropes and lanterns. For hours they had groped through twisting passages, narrow crawl spaces, hidden doors, secret steps, and shafts that plunged down into utter blackness. Seldom had he felt so utterly a cripple. A man takes much for granted when he has two hands. Ladders, for an instance. Even crawling did not come easy; not for nought do they speak of hands and knees. Nor could he hold a torch and climb, as others could.

And all for naught. They found only darkness, dust, and rats. And dragons, lurking down below. He remembered the sullen orange glow of the coals in the iron dragon's mouth. The brazier warmed a chamber at the bottom of a shaft where half a dozen tunnels met. On the floor he'd found a scuffed mosaic of the three-headed dragon of House Targaryen done in tiles of black and red. I know you, Kingslayer, the beast seemed to be saying. I have been here all the time, waiting for you to come to me. And it seemed to Jaime that he knew that voice, the iron tones that had once belonged to Rhaegar, Prince of Dragonstone.

The day had been windy when he said farewell to Rhaegar, in the yard of the Red Keep. The prince had donned his night-black armor, with the three-headed dragon picked out in rubies on his breastplate. "Your Grace," Jaime had pleaded, "let Darry stay to guard the king this once, or Ser Barristan. Their cloaks are as white as mine."

Prince Rhaegar shook his head. "My royal sire fears your father more than he does our cousin Robert. He wants you close, so Lord Tywin cannot harm him. I dare not take that crutch away from him at such an hour."

Jaime's anger had risen up in his throat. "I am not a crutch. I am a knight of the Kingsguard."

"Then guard the king," Ser Jon Darry snapped at him. "When you donned that cloak, you promised to obey."

Rhaegar had put his hand on Jaime's shoulder. "When this battle's done I mean to call a council. Changes will be made. I meant to do it long ago, but . . . well, it does no good to speak of roads not taken. We shall talk when I return."

Those were the last words Rhaegar Targaryen ever spoke to him. Outside the gates an army had assembled, whilst another descended on the Trident. So the Prince of Dragonstone mounted up and donned his tall black helm, and rode forth to his doom.

He was more right than he knew. When the battle was done, there were changes made. "Aerys thought no harm could come to him if he kept me near," he told his father's corpse. "Isn't that amusing?" Lord Tywin seemed to think so; his smile was wider than before. He seems to enjoy being dead.

Later, Jaime attempts to get to the bottom of the Red Keep's mysteries by questioning the chief undergaoler a Rennifer Longwaters, who claims to have a drop of dragonsblood and involves Jaime in a longwinded discussion on Targaryen lineages.  I think this may be an ironic nod from the author that Jaime himself is a 'secret Targ' -- he is the dragon under the waters!  I've always thought Jaime misheard the dragon:  perhaps it was saying to him, 'I know you kin-slayer..' welcoming him home and admonishing him for his sins against his own family at once:  

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 he had promised to find what answers he could from the chief undergaoler, a bentback old man named Rennifer Longwaters.

"I see you wonder, what sort of name is that?" the man had cackled when Jaime went to question him. "It is an old name, 'tis true. I am not one to boast, but there is royal blood in my veins. I am descended from a princess. My father told me the tale when I was a tad of a lad." Longwaters had not been a tad of a lad for many a year, to judge from his spotted head and the white hairs growing from his chin. "She was the fairest treasure of the Maidenvault. Lord Oakenfist the great admiral lost his heart to her, though he was married to another. She gave their son the bastard name of 'Waters' in honor of his father, and he grew to be a great knight, as did his own son, who put the 'Long' before the 'Waters' so men might know that he was not basely born himself. So I have a little dragon in me."

"Yes, I almost mistook you for Aegon the Conqueror," Jaime had answered. "Waters" was a common bastard name about Blackwater Bay; old Longwaters was more like to be descended from some minor household knight than from a princess. "As it matters, though, I have more pressing concerns than your lineage."

Longwaters inclined his head. "The lost prisoner."

"And the missing gaoler."

"Rugen," the old man supplied. "An undergaoler. He had charge of the third level, the black cells."

"Tell me of him," Jaime had to say. A bloody farce. He knew who Rugen was, even if Longwaters did not.

"Unkempt, unshaven, coarse of speech. I misliked the man, 'tis true, I do confess it. Rugen was here when I first came, twelve years past. He held his appointment from King Aerys. The man was seldom here, it must be said. I made note of it in my reports, my lord. I most suredly did, I give you my word upon it, the word of a man with royal blood."

Mention that royal blood once more and I may spill some of it, thought Jaime.

 

Assuming Jaime may be Aerys' bastard, then the last two bolded sentiments contain many levels of tragic irony, not least considering Jaime's obsession with honor and oaths-- and that he unbeknownst to himself is the blood of the dragon, the same he has unknowingly spilled.  Jaime, like Jon, knows nothing!

 

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I believe that both Rhaegar and Jon have dragon dreams. Jon dreamed often of the crypt, he was also startled when Tyrion told him he knew Jon dreamed of dragons (not the same way as Tyrion's, I suppose). Could this apply to Rhaegar as well? Daeron became a miserable drunkyard because of his dreams he couldn't interpret or prevent. Daemon Blackfyre believed in his dream only to get it turned on him.

Both Rhaegar and Jon being melancholic might have their dreams playing a part of. What was Rhaegar dreaming about Summerhall? How was Jon's dreams of dragons?

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6 hours ago, Schwarze Sonne said:

I believe that both Rhaegar and Jon have dragon dreams. Jon dreamed often of the crypt, he was also startled when Tyrion told him he knew Jon dreamed of dragons (not the same way as Tyrion's, I suppose). Could this apply to Rhaegar as well? Daeron became a miserable drunkyard because of his dreams he couldn't interpret or prevent. Daemon Blackfyre believed in his dream only to get it turned on him.

Both Rhaegar and Jon being melancholic might have their dreams playing a part of. What was Rhaegar dreaming about Summerhall? How was Jon's dreams of dragons?

Thanks! What a great thing you remembered that I forgot about. I may just add this to the main post.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I have been re-reading all of Jon's chapters from A Game of Thrones through A Dance with Dragons (something I am seriously considering doing for other characters given the insight I now feel sticking with a single character all the way through gives you) for a piece I am writing on the musical references in Jon's chapters, and one thing that has really stuck out for me is the growing isolation of Jon throughout A Dance with Dragons, following his election as Lord Commander of the Night's Watch. 

In Jon III in A Dance with Dragons we can really see this self-imposed isolation from his former friends, and the sadness that this brings to Jon:

"My lord, will you sup with us? Owen, shove over and make room for Jon."

Jon wanted nothing more. No, he had to tell himself, those days are gone. The realization twisted in his belly like a knife. They had chosen him to rule. The Wall was his, and their lives were his as well. A lord may love the men that he commands, he could hear his lord father saying, but he cannot be a friend to them. One day he may need to sit in judgment on them, or send them forth to die. "Another day," the lord commander lied. "Edd, best see to your own supper. I have work to finish." (Jon III in Dance)

Later, in the same chapter:

He wrote two letters, the first to Ser Denys, the second to Cotter Pyke. Both of them had been hounding him for more men. Halder and Toad he dispatched west to the Shadow Tower, Grenn and Pyp to Eastwatch-by-the-Sea. The ink would not flow properly, and all his words seemed curt and crude and clumsy, yet he persisted.

When he finally put the quill down, the room was dim and chilly, and he could feel its walls closing in. Perched above the window, the Old Bear's raven peered down at him with shrewd black eyes. My last friend, Jon thought ruefully. And I had best outlive you, or you'll eat my face as well. Ghost did not count. Ghost was closer than a friend. Ghost was part of him. (Jon III in Dance)

And much later on in Dance, we have this:

In the haunted forest to the north, the shadows of the afternoon crept through the trees. The western sky was a blaze of red, but to the east the first stars were peeking out. Jon Snow flexed the fingers of his sword hand, remembering all he'd lost. Sam, you sweet fat fool, you played me a cruel jape when you made me lord commander. A lord commander has no friends. (Jon XI in Dance)

Jon's isolation is, in many ways, self-imposed following his election.  After consultation with Maester Aemon (and I do wonder how much of the decision was Aemon's and how much it was Jon's), he sends the maester and Sam off to the Citadel; when he realizes that Grenn and Pyp and Halder and Toad are now his to command rather than his friends, he sends them off to opposing ends of the Wall.  And why? Because he recalls Ned Stark's words on the relationship between a leader and his men; a ruler and his subjects.  What is unspoken in Jon's thoughts is not that a Lord Commander cannot have friends, but that ultimately Jon is lonely as a result of this.  All he has left is the raven and Ghost.  

Now, if we in turn look at Rhaegar:

"It was said that no man ever knew Prince Rhaegar, truly. I had the privilege of seeing him in tourney, though, and often heard him play his harp with its silver strings."

Ser Jorah snorted. "Along with a thousand others at some harvest feast. Next you'll claim you squired for him."

"I make no such claim, ser. Myles Mooton was Prince Rhaegar's squire, and Richard Lonmouth after him. When they won their spurs, he knighted them himself, and they remained his close companions. Young Lord Connington was dear to the prince as well, but his oldest friend was Arthur Dayne." (Daenerys I in Storm)

Again, we have the idea of a man surrounded by people - as Jon is with the likes of Marsh, Yarwyck and Satin, perhaps - but that he is equally isolated from them.  Perhaps Rhaegar's isolation (which I think was as self-imposed for him as it was for Jon) is part of his melancholy?

Perhaps by now he should have grown used to such things. The Red Keep had its secrets too. Even Rhaegar. The Prince of Dragonstone had never trusted him as he had trusted Arthur Dayne. Harrenhal was proof of that. The year of the false spring. (The Kingbreaker in Dance)

Again, Arthur Dayne is an exception.  Perhaps in the same way as the Maester of Castle Black (currently absent) should be for Jon?

Regardless, there is an isolation and loneliness to Jon in Dance that saddens him, though he rarely vocalizes it.  And it is, perhaps, this isolation that leads to the Ides of Marsh.  Jon has no true allies and friends left at Castle Black, leaving him vulnerable; just as Rhaegar had nobody who truly knew him when he took to the Ruby Ford, where he was felled by Robert Baratheon. 

Just a few thoughts.  As I said above, I am putting together a piece on the links between Jon and Rhaegar through musical references in Jon's chapters and am unsure whether to start a new thread for it - @The Fattest Leech - do you think it would inform our discussion here regarding the parallels between the two?  While not all of it relates to the melancholic connections between Jon and Rhaegar, there is a section on the connection between the two and sad songs..........

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5 hours ago, dornishdame said:

~snipped some great stuff for length~

Regardless, there is an isolation and loneliness to Jon in Dance that saddens him, though he rarely vocalizes it.  And it is, perhaps, this isolation that leads to the Ides of Marsh.  Jon has no true allies and friends left at Castle Black, leaving him vulnerable; just as Rhaegar had nobody who truly knew him when he took to the Ruby Ford, where he was felled by Robert Baratheon. 

Just a few thoughts.  As I said above, I am putting together a piece on the links between Jon and Rhaegar through musical references in Jon's chapters and am unsure whether to start a new thread for it - @The Fattest Leech - do you think it would inform our discussion here regarding the parallels between the two?  While not all of it relates to the melancholic connections between Jon and Rhaegar, there is a section on the connection between the two and sad songs..........

This is an amazing comparison. Thank you.

In regards to your few thoughts, it is funny because just yesterday I mentioned to @sweetsunray that I always wanted to do a song and lyric discussion thread! However, if I am reading your thought correctly, you want to do one that links Jon and Rhaegar specifically without the melancholy. I do believe it would fit in with this thread, however, I am more than willing to adjust the title of this thread to more of a general Jon and Rhaegar comparison title if that is ok with you? I think some of the comparisons made here could possibly help or link to what the songs would say. Just a thought and I am willing to join in either thread if you want to start one with your specifics :thumbsup: Just let me know.

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On 8/29/2016 at 9:25 PM, The Fattest Leech said:

This is an amazing comparison. Thank you.

In regards to your few thoughts, it is funny because just yesterday I mentioned to @sweetsunray that I always wanted to do a song and lyric discussion thread! However, if I am reading your thought correctly, you want to do one that links Jon and Rhaegar specifically without the melancholy. I do believe it would fit in with this thread, however, I am more than willing to adjust the title of this thread to more of a general Jon and Rhaegar comparison title if that is ok with you? I think some of the comparisons made here could possibly help or link to what the songs would say. Just a thought and I am willing to join in either thread if you want to start one with your specifics :thumbsup: Just let me know.

I think I will post what I have written here - it is a long post, but there is a section on Jon and his connection to sad songs that I think really fits in well with what we have been discussing re: their melancholic nature.  It is interesting to note that for someone we don't really associate with music, Jon actually has two songs written out pretty fully in his chapters - The Dornishman's Wife and Last of the Giants. The link between Jon and music becomes subtle, I think, because he isn't the one singing or playing.  

This is your thread - if you wish to amend the title of it, then please do so, but it is completely up to you!! 

I'll post what I have shortly, but it is only a small part of the pages and pages of notes I accumulated in my re-read of Jon's chapters. 

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Son of the Bard: Music, Rhaegar Targaryen and Jon Snow

 

Of the six children that Ned Stark raised at Winterfell, the one we most directly associate with music is Sansa Stark.  Her chapters are full of inner monologues referring to “the songs” and their heroes and tales of valor, their ladies and knights; and when she goes south to King’s Landing Sansa feels as if those songs will come alive for her.  But, as Littlefinger tells her in Sansa III in A Game of Thrones, “Life is not a song, sweetling.  You may learn that one day to your sorrow.”  One of the remaining five children we would expect to be associated with music is Jon Snow.  His biological father, Rhaegar Targaryen, was well-known for his love of music and his talents in song-writing and composing, as well as playing.  And yet, Jon seems to make little to no reference to sharing his father’s musical passions – we never hear him singing or playing any sort of instrument (unlike Sansa, who Arya tells us in her first chapter in A Game of Thrones plays both the high harp and the bells).  That said, if we delve deeper into Jon’s chapters, and look at the language used, then a sense of musicality starts to emerge – and there are multiple instances of musical associations that link Jon to Rhaegar from his very first POV chapter.  Indeed, the first mention of music we have in Jon’s chapters can be said to relate directly to Rhaegar, and to Jon's hidden Targaryen identity.

A singer was playing the high harp and reciting a ballad, but down at this end of the hall his voice could scarcely be heard above the roar of the fire, the clangor of pewter plates and cups, and the low mutter of a hundred drunken conversations. (Jon I in A Game of Thrones)

This distortion of the music from the top end of the Great Hall at Winterfell, where the Baratheons and Starks are seated, down to the far end where Jon is placed with the younger squires represents the distortion of Jon’s own identity.  In hiding the fact that Jon is the son of Lyanna and (more specifically given that Robert is present and is king) Rhaegar, Ned has distorted his nephew’s own identity, blurring it so that the truth of who he really is cannot be seen or heard any more than Jon can comprehend the music that the bard is playing at the feast.  Later, when Jon rushes from the hall out into the yard, having drunk too much wine and made a spectacle of himself screaming at Benjen that he will never father a bastard, and toppling over a jug of wine:

The sounds of music and song spilled through the open windows behind him.  They were the last things Jon wanted to hear.  He wiped away his tears on the sleeve of his shirt, furious that he had let them fall, and turned to go. (Jon I in A Game of Thrones)

These thoughts are tied into the identity that Jon has been forced, without his knowledge, to take on: The Bastard of Winterfell.  And it is that distortion of identity that affects the representation of music and song as we begin to spend time in Jon’s mindset. 

When Daenerys Targaryen implores Arstan Whitebeard to tell her of the tourney victories her brother Rhaegar won, the old man admits that Rhaegar:

“never loved the song of swords the way that Robert did, or Jaime Lannister.” (Daenerys IV in A Storm of Swords) 

This idea, of music and war or battle or fighting being linked, is a theme throughout Jon’s arc.  And as was the case with Rhaegar, Jon sees such fighting as a necessary duty. 

Jon’s third chapter in A Game of Thrones opens with the statement that “The courtyard rang to the song of swords”, and this connection between fighting and music is carried through to A Dance with Dragons.  While this term – song of swords – is repeated again and again, the integration of war and music is displayed in many other ways throughout the text (there are so many quotes, in fact, that they could fill pages and chapters of their own).  One of the instances in which the connection is most evident is in A Storm of Swords, when Castle Black and the Wall come under successive attacks from Styr’s Thenn and wildling band, and Mance Rayder’s army.

When the roof collapsed, flames rose up roaring, so loud they almost drowned out the warhorns of the Thenns. (Jon VII in A Storm of Swords)

This chapter also carries through the idea of fighting, of battle, as a dance – and what is a dance but movement set to music?

Yet the drums beat on, the trebuchets shuddered and thumped, and the sound of skinpipes came wafting through the night like the songs of strange fierce birds.  Septon Cellador began to sing as well, his voice tremulous and thick with wine. (Jon VIII in A Storm of Swords)

And when the Night’s Watch beat off Mance’s attack for the night, it is music that comes to Jon’s mind:

Even the chariots rumbled off, having done nothing but look fearsome and make a lot of noise.  When they break, they break hard, Jon Snow thought as he watched them reel away.  The drums had all gone silent.  How do you like that music, Mance?  How do you like the taste of the Dornishman’s wife? (Jon VIII in A Storm of Swords)

Firstly, the use of the word ‘reel’ takes us back to the previous chapter, and the idea of fighting, of battle, as a dance – movement set to music.  The Dornishman’s Wife is the song Mance sings when he and Jon first meet in A Storm of Swords, and there is an irony to Jon thinking of the strangeness of this song being sung in a tent north of the Wall, so far from the red mountains of Dorne.  The song has made the same journey Jon has, and while Mance sings of The Dornishman’s Wife, another royal bard – Rhaegar – is The Dornishwoman’s Husband.

The idea of the song of swords is much repeated, but Jon thinks of it occurring without much associating it with himself, though this moment in A Dance with Dragons is an exception:

The song of steel on steel woke a hunger in Jon.  It reminded him of warmer, simpler days, when he had been a boy at Winterfell matching blades with Robb under the watchful eye of Ser Rodrik Cassel.  Ser Rodrik too had fallen, slain by Theon Turncloak and his ironmen as he’d tried to retake Winterfell.  The great stronghold of House Stark was a scorched desolation.  All my memories are poisoned. (Jon VI in A Dance with Dragons)

Jon thinks of Iron Emmett loving the song of swords, but the only time he links it to himself, he thinks of how such a connection is tainted; his memories are bittersweet as his enjoyment of training and learning to fight alongside Robb is tempered by his knowledge that Robb is gone – betrayed by his own men, as Jon will be – and the Winterfell in which they trained is gone too, left only for the ghosts.  And so ultimately, like Rhaegar, Jon does not have love for the song of swords the way that men like Robert Baratheon and Jaime Lannister – and Iron Emmett – do.

Identity is a theme that looms large through the arcs of multiple characters – including Jon Snow.  And musical language is one way in which two of those identities (one clear and one not-so-clear) is portrayed throughout his POV chapters.  Music is closely associated with his biological father, Rhaegar Targaryen, and his wolf, Ghost, with the Stark heritage that he inherits from his mother, Lyanna.  And yet, we see more than once that there are links between the two halves of Jon’s parentage, as the sound of howling wolves is repeatedly compared to music.

We first see the link between the two in Jon’s chapters in A Clash of Kings, the book in which Jon’s warging skills and the extent of the bond between him and Ghost truly start to become evident.

A sound rose out of the darkness, faint and distant, but unmistakable: the howling of wolves.  Their voices rose and fell, a chilly song and lonely.  It made the hairs rise along the back of his neck. (Jon IV in A Clash of Kings)

This is built upon later in A Clash of Kings, when Jon experiences a wolf dream for the first time – an occasion which coincides with the one and only time we have, as yet, witnessed the mute wolf Ghost emitting sound:

He sat on his haunches and lifted his head to the darkening sky, and his cry echoed through the forest, a long, lonely mournful sound.  As it died away he pricked up his ears, listening for an answer, but the only sound was the sigh of blowing snow. (Jon VII in A Clash of Kings)

Jon’s growing closeness to Ghost is more and more apparent throughout A Dance with Dragons.  This coincides with Jon’s increased awareness of his wolf dreams, reaching a stage in which he remembers them while awake, and when he encounters the skinchanger Borroq, he is instantly able to identify the man as such (the first time Jon does this instinctively) – and, in turn, Borroq addresses Jon as “brother” (Jon XII in A Dance with Dragons).  This is in contrast to the first meeting with Varamyr in A Storm of Swords, in which Jon is unsettled by the skinchanger, but is unable to identify precisely why.

Far off, he could hear his packmates calling to him, like to like.  They were hunting, too.  A wild rain lashed down upon his black brother as he tore at the flesh of an enormous goat, washing the blood from his side where the goat’s long horn had raked him.  In another place, his little sister lifted her head to sing to the moon, and a hundred small grey cousins broke off their hunt to sing with her.  The hills were warmer where they were, and full of food. (Jon I in A Dance with Dragons)

The following section of the same dream continues to address the sense of Ghost and Jon as one, an idea that Jon comes back to again and again.

The taste of blood was on his tongue, and his ears rang to the song of the hundred cousins.  Once they had been six, five whimpering blind in the snow beside their dead mother, sucking cool milk from her hard dead nipples whilst he crawled off alone.  Four remained……and one the white wolf could no longer sense. (Jon I in A Dance with Dragons)

The link of wolves and song is not limited to howling – when Jon contemplates his response to Ramsay Bolton’s Pink Letter, he thinks of his half-brothers and –sisters.

He thought of Robb, with snowflakes melting in his hair.  Kill the boy and let the man be born.  He thought of Bran, clambering up a tower wall, agile as a monkey.  Of Rickon’s breathless laughter.  Of Sansa, brushing out Lady’s coat and singing to herself.  You know nothing, Jon Snow.  He thought of Arya, her hair as tangled as a bird’s nest. (Jon XIII in A Dance with Dragons)

And ultimately Robb, Bran, Rickon, Sansa and Arya comprise Jon’s ‘pack’ as much as Grey Wind, Summer, Shaggydog, Lady and Nymeria comprise Ghost’s.  This link between the wolves and song bridge the two halves of Jon Snow’s biological heritage and identity; he is the son of the wolf maid and the son of the bard.

And while it is not only in his chapters that the howling of wolves is compared to song, perhaps Ghost is not entirely linked solely to Jon’s Stark heritage.  If we look at these two quotes regarding Ghost’s red eyes, we can see a Targaryen link appear:

The wolf was there, eyes like embers (Jon IX in A Game of Thrones)

Atop the stones of the ringwall, Ghost hunched with white fur bristling.  He made no sound, but his dark red eyes spoke blood. (Jon II in A Storm of Swords)

Embers+Blood = Fire and Blood; the words of House Targaryen.  Perhaps.

Throughout the series there are repeated parallels between Rhaegar/Lyanna and Jon/Ygritte, from the manner of their meeting to the conflict between a sworn vow and a woman.  This link between the two is also tied into the tale – or ‘song’, as Ygritte calls it – of Bael the Bard, the wildling king who stole a Stark maiden.  Indeed, it is in Jon VI in A Clash of Kings, the chapter in which he meets Ygritte for the first time and hears the song of Bael that the musical references in Jon’s chapters really begin to become evident. 

Bael’s song is that of a King-beyond-the-Wall and well-known bard who travels south to teach the Stark in Winterfell a lesson.  When Stark is suitably impressed by Bael, he offers to reward him with a gift of his choosing.  Bael requests the boon of the fairest flower in Stark’s gardens – and is given a winter rose, the most beautiful of roses and then just coming into season.  The following morning, Winterfell awakes to find Stark’s only child, a daughter, missing and Bael’s rose on her pillow in payment.  The following year, when it seems that the Stark line will be extinguished, the Stark maiden is returned to her bed in Winterfell with the addition of a young son.  This story, which Ygritte tells to Jon, is full of blue rose imagery and is reminiscent of Rhaegar and Lyanna’s own romance.  The tale – or song – of a royal bard who ‘steals’ the only daughter of the Stark in Winterfell, only for her to be found a year later with a child.

If I could show her Winterfell……give her a flower from the glass gardens, feast her in the Great Hall, and show her the stone kings on their thrones.  We could bathe in the hot pools, and love beneath the heart tree while the old gods watched over us. (Jon V in A Storm of Swords)

In some ways, Jon and Ygritte’s story is an inversion of that of Bael and the Stark daughter – and of Rhaegar and Lyanna.  Although Jon has Bael-like thoughts in A Storm of Swords, as above, and Ygritte repeatedly argues that Jon ‘stole’ her, in a sense it is Jon himself that is the seduced Stark maiden.  Jon certainly thinks of flowers from the glass gardens, a feast in the Great Hall – both of which are elements of the Bael story that Ygritte tells him when they first meet in A Clash of Kings – and there is a reference to the stone kings on their thrones, and therefore to the crypts in which Bael and his Stark girl hid from the world.  But, if we look at what Ygritte says to Jon in his third chapter in A Storm of Swords, we see the role inversion:

“There’s been no one,” he confessed.  “Only you.”

“A maid,” she teased.  “You were a maid.” (Jon III in A Storm of Swords)

Later in this chapter, Ygritte refers to the Bael story again, and says that she told it in part so that Jon would know to “pluck” her as Bael had his Stark maid, but he did not – and then we get another assertion that Jon knows nothing, implying that as a result of this Ygritte had to be the one to ‘take’ this Stark maiden.

It is not only Ygritte that makes this inversion – in the chapter before this, Jon’s thoughts are echoed by the words that Ygritte later speaks:

“The girl wants you in her, that’s plain enough to see.”

Too bloody plain, thought Jon, and it seems that half the column has seen it.  He studied the falling snow so Tormund might not see him redden.  I am a man of the Night’s Watch, he reminded himself.  So why did he feel like some blushing maid?” (Jon II in A Storm of Swords)

Later in the same chapter, Jon thinks that “Sometimes she sang in a low husky voice that stirred him” (Jon II in A Storm of Swords) – the idea of Ygritte as a singer (and she does sing Last of the Giants in this very chapter) and therefore as a bard, continues the theme of inversion in the tale for Jon and Ygritte’s relationship.  The idea – prevalent throughout A Song of Ice and Fire – of history repeating itself, though not quite.

And to return to the beginning, if we look again at the chapter in A Clash of Kings in which Jon and Ygritte first meet, and he hears of Bael’s song for the first time:

“The song ends when they find the babe, but there is a darker end to the story. (Jon VI in A Clash of Kings)

It sounds so very like the end of the story of the Knight of the Laughing Tree:

“That was a good story.  But it should have been the three bad knights who hurt him, not their squires.  Then the little crannogman could have killed them all.  The part about the ransoms was stupid.  And the mystery knight should win the tourney, defeating every challenger, and name the wolf maid the queen of love and beauty.”

“She was,” said Meera.  “But that’s a sadder story.” (Bran II in A Storm of Swords)

Just as the song of Bael and his Stark maiden ended sadly, so did that of Rhaegar and Lyanna – and ultimately that of Jon and Ygritte. 

The theme of Rhaegar and Lyanna, and of Jon and Ygritte, being linked to sad songs continues beyond the tie-in to the story of Bael the Bard.  Meera’s Knight of the Laughing Tree story, referred to above, is important here as it documents the only meeting we have on page of Rhaegar and Lyanna – and it is interesting that it also features a reference to music, and specifically to sad music –

“The dragon prince sang a song so sad it made the wolf maid sniffle” (Bran II in A Storm of Swords)

We do not know whom or what Rhaegar’s sad song was about as we receive only snippets of information on Rhaegar’s compositions (mainly from Barristan).  Lyanna is portrayed as a wild and tough (though clearly in many ways romantic) young woman, but it is not possible to guess from her reaction what it was about this song that moved her; only that it did.  Jon and Ygritte are also connected to sad songs.  Last of the Giants, as referenced above, is a song in which this is evident. Although Jon is not as moved by Ygritte’s song as Lyanna is by Rhaegar’s, the continuation of the theme of sad music between the two couples is clear:

There were tears on Ygritte’s cheeks when the song ended.

“Why are you weeping?” Jon asked.  “It was only a song.  There are hundreds of giants, I’ve just seen them.”

“Oh, hundreds,” she said furiously.  “You know nothing, Jon Snow.” (Jon II in A Storm of Swords)

This song may not have made Jon the wolf maid sniffle, but immediately following Ygritte’s assertion that Jon knows nothing, his face is heavily scratched by the eagle bonded to the now-dead skinchanger Orell, leaving the appearance of Jon almost weeping blood (as Lyanna is said to do in Ned’s crypt dream in Eddard XIII in A Game of Thrones).

Jon’s association with sad songs is not limited to those with which Ygritte is connected – there is one in which we can pull in ties to Lyanna without the comparison between Jon and his lover, and his parents.  In A Dance with Dragons, Jon negotiates the surrender of wildling children as hostages to the good behaviour of their parents, most of whom are noted tribal leaders.  When Tormund argues that girls are just as beloved of their parents as boys, Jon asks him if Mance had ever sung the song of Danny Flint. 

“Her song is sad and pretty.  What happened to her wasn’t.” (Jon XII in A Dance with Dragons)

While we are not privy to the lyrics of Danny’s song, Bran’s final chapter in A Storm of Swords – along with Jon’s thoughts in the above chapter - place the events at the Nightfort.  While the castle there has been abandoned for centuries (and therefore Danny lived long ago) there is a warning to be heeded through this song.  Jon gives it to Tormund, a silent reminder of the type of men who are part of the Night’s Watch.  And Danny’s song – which Bran lists as among Old Nan’s scariest stories – should have served as a warning to Jon’s mother, Lyanna.  Brave Danny Flint dressed up as a boy to take the black, and it set in motion a series of events that would ultimately lead to her death.  Lesson – girls should not dress up as a boy.  And yet, Lyanna does.  When she poses as the Knight of the Laughing Tree at the Harrenhal Tourney, like Danny Flint she too unwitting sets in motion a tragic set of events that ultimately leads to her death.  I am aware that there are Arya parallels in this story too (Arya posing as ‘Arry’, a Night’s Watch recruit) and that Arya is the niece most visibly like Lyanna, but it is the parallels with Lyanna I am most concerned with here. 

Rhaegar is repeatedly associated with music – in many key instances with sad music – and that theme appears, subtly, throughout Jon’s arc, in many cases tying in with other similarities between the two of them.  Throughout his relationship with Ygritte and the call-backs to Bael the Bard that entails, Jon repeatedly thinks of the conflict between the vow he swore (to the Night’s Watch) and his love for Ygritte – and internally compares it to the struggle he imagines his father may have endured between fulfilling his marriage vows and his love for Jon’s mother.  While Jon specifically attributes this to Ned, whom he believes to be his father, such comparisons work equally well for Rhaegar.   

More general musical references also appear in the text.  There are repeated references to both Satin and Melisandre’s voices being musical, as well as the devotional songs that the queen’s men and Melisandre sing while at Castle Black:

“Ghost.”  Melisandre made the word a song. (Jon VI in A Dance with Dragons)

Satin’s voice was sweet as song. (Jon VII in A Dance with Dragons)

And, later in A Dance with Dragons, there are multiple musical references surrounding the wedding and wedding party of Alys Karstark – and a contrast is made between music and war and music and love:

Owen the Oaf took up his fiddle, and several of the free folk joined in with pipes and drums.  The same pipes and drums they played to sound Mance Rayder’s attack upon the Wall.  Jon thought they sounded sweeter now. (Jon X in A Dance with Dragons)

With this, we can see the association between music and love, as much as that between music and war.  And that ties in with Barristan’s description of Rhaegar as a singer:

“When you heard him play his high harp with the silver strings and sing of twilights and tears and the death of kings, you could not but feel that he was singing of himself and those he loved.” (Daenerys IV in A Storm of Swords)

Daenerys then goes on to ask if Robert liked sad songs, to which Barristan replies that the opposite was true.  And this is as true of Jon; for him the association is always with sad songs – and often with songs of love.

In spite of the numerous musical references throughout his chapters, we never truly grasp Jon’s opinion of music.  He certainly seems to like the social aspect of it – in A Game of Thrones, when trying to encourage Sam to spend time with the other recruits, he speaks of Daeron’s singing; yet, when the recruits are to be assigned an order within the Night’s Watch, Jon is not happy to be named among the new Stewards, and thinks:

Only Sam and Dareon remained on the benches; a fat boy, a singer……….and him. (Jon VI in A Game of Thrones)

Perhaps Jon does not believe that a bard can be a fighter, at least not at this stage in his life – although his time with Mance disabuses Jon of this notion, as he thinks repeatedly of Mance as being both.  And he comes to respect the power of music, and to associate Mance with both music and fighting.  When Jon sends Sam to the Citadel, he tells him that Dareon will be going too – in the hope that his songs will inspire those in the south to join the Night’s Watch.  And perhaps it is apt, then, that the only time Jon think of music as sweet is in A Dance with Dragons, when he has reconciled this dichotomy.  Regardless of Jon’s true views, however, the repeated musical references throughout his chapters, and the links to songs and bards, are a subtle reminder of the links between Jon and Rhaegar – and perhaps that Jon is not as unlike his biological father as some may think.

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6 hours ago, The Fattest Leech said:

I just updated the thread and gave you some of the credit in the main post @dornishdame

 

Thank you! :) 

I was re-reading the OP, and the reference to dragon dreams reminded me of this:

Dragons again. For a moment Jon could almost see them too, coiling in the night, their dark wings outlined against a sea of flame. (Jon VIII in Dance)

If we compare that to Aemon:

"The last dragon died before you were born," said Sam. "How could you remember them?"

"I see them in my dreams, Sam. I see a red star bleeding in the sky. I still remember red. I see their shadows on the snow, hear the crack of leathern wings, feel their hot breath. My brothers dreamed of dragons too, and the dreams killed them, every one. Sam, we tremble on the cusp of half-remembered prophecies, of wonders and terrors that no man now living could hope to comprehend . . . or . . ." (Sam III in Feast)

Not exactly the same, but similar enough to give pause at Jon being able to visualize them so well and so closely to Aemon's description.  Also interesting that Aemon's description mentions their shadows on the snow.

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7 hours ago, dornishdame said:

Thank you! :) 

I was re-reading the OP, and the reference to dragon dreams reminded me of this:

Dragons again. For a moment Jon could almost see them too, coiling in the night, their dark wings outlined against a sea of flame. (Jon VIII in Dance)

If we compare that to Aemon:

"The last dragon died before you were born," said Sam. "How could you remember them?"

"I see them in my dreams, Sam. I see a red star bleeding in the sky. I still remember red. I see their shadows on the snow, hear the crack of leathern wings, feel their hot breath. My brothers dreamed of dragons too, and the dreams killed them, every one. Sam, we tremble on the cusp of half-remembered prophecies, of wonders and terrors that no man now living could hope to comprehend . . . or . . ." (Sam III in Feast)

Not exactly the same, but similar enough to give pause at Jon being able to visualize them so well and so closely to Aemon's description.  Also interesting that Aemon's description mentions their shadows on the snow.

This actually, in my eyes, also relates to some symbolism for Jon that I have been writing about in another thread. I have found (I am sure i'm not the only one) a link to the Blood Eagle in Norse mythology and Jon... and lots of other stuff.

Thanks again! My time on this forum has been so limited lately that I regret not having time to do more work here. Damn reality :angry2:

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Ok, I just added some of this to the main post, but wanted to elaborate a little here as well.

This added to the main post:

11. Ned carried (delivered?) Jon to Winterfell, Winterfell is the place that is Jon's home, burned to ruins

  1. Thanks to Ravenous Reader for this: In this context, it's interesting that Rhaegar is said to have been 'haunted' by Summerhall, in the same way that Ned is haunted by the Tower of Joy (we know this from the insistent shades of the dead which visit him at crucial moments) and Jon is haunted by his Winterfell crypt dreams.
  2. If you look at the etymology of the word Summer-hall and Winter-fell, a synonym for hall is passage or transition, while a synonym for fell is a strong seam, as in the joining of two pieces of fabric. To fell is also to tear down, like Ned's request at the Tower of Joy.

Fell also means hill or mountain,in Old Norse... the same place of inspiration for most of the northern/Jon storyline. Groups of cairns are a common feature on many fells. Ned had the ToJ was in the mountains of Dorne and pulled down and piled up as funeral cairns for the fallen guards he still held respect for.

Sidenote: I see where GRRM got the inspiration for the Arryn's and their high mountain castle location, the Isle of Arran. @sweetsunray you may be interested in this if yo have not seen it already???

  • Arran is divided into highland and lowland areas by the Highland Boundary Fault
  • Arran is significantly loftier than all the land that immediately surrounds it along the shores
  • The profile of the north Arran hills as seen from the Ayrshire coast is a well-known sight referred to as the "Sleeping Warrior" due to its resemblance to a resting human figure.
  • created by substantial magmatic activity around 58 million years ago
  • Several Bronze Age sites have been excavated, including "Ossian's Mound" near Clachaig and a cairn near Blackwaterfoot that produced a bronze dagger and a gold fillet
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1 hour ago, The Fattest Leech said:

Ok, I just added some of this to the main post, but wanted to elaborate a little here as well.

This added to the main post:

11. Ned carried (delivered?) Jon to Winterfell, Winterfell is the place that is Jon's home, burned to ruins

  1. Thanks to Ravenous Reader for this: In this context, it's interesting that Rhaegar is said to have been 'haunted' by Summerhall, in the same way that Ned is haunted by the Tower of Joy (we know this from the insistent shades of the dead which visit him at crucial moments) and Jon is haunted by his Winterfell crypt dreams.
  2. If you look at the etymology of the word Summer-hall and Winter-fell, a synonym for hall is passage or transition, while a synonym for fell is a strong seam, as in the joining of two pieces of fabric. To fell is also to tear down, like Ned's request at the Tower of Joy.

Fell also means hill or mountain,in Old Norse... the same place of inspiration for most of the northern/Jon storyline. Groups of cairns are a common feature on many fells. Ned had the ToJ was in the mountains of Dorne and pulled down and piled up as funeral cairns for the fallen guards he still held respect for.

Sidenote: I see where GRRM got the inspiration for the Arryn's and their high mountain castle location, the Isle of Arran. @sweetsunray you may be interested in this if yo have not seen it already???

  • Arran is divided into highland and lowland areas by the Highland Boundary Fault
  • Arran is significantly loftier than all the land that immediately surrounds it along the shores
  • The profile of the north Arran hills as seen from the Ayrshire coast is a well-known sight referred to as the "Sleeping Warrior" due to its resemblance to a resting human figure.
  • created by substantial magmatic activity around 58 million years ago
  • Several Bronze Age sites have been excavated, including "Ossian's Mound" near Clachaig and a cairn near Blackwaterfoot that produced a bronze dagger and a gold fillet

Combined with imo the Vale of the Tempe

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The Tempe Pass is a strategic pass in Greece since it is the main route from Larisa through the mountains to the coast. Though it can be bypassed via the Sarantoporo Pass, the alternate route takes longer. Because of this it has been the scene of numerous battles throughout history. In 480 BC, 10,000 Athenians and Spartans gathered at Tempe to stop Xerxes's invasion. However, once there, they were warned by Alexander I of Macedon that the vale could be bypassed and that the army of Xerxes was overwhelmingly large; accordingly, the Greeks retreated.

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Tempe, (plur.) a valley in Thessaly, between mount Olympus at the north, and Ossa at the south, through which the river Peneus flows into the Ægean. The poets have described it as the most delightful spot on the earth, with continual cooling shades, and verdant walks, which the warbling of birds rendered more pleasant and romantic, and which the gods often honored with their presence. Tempe extended about five miles in length but varied in the dimensions of its breadth so as to be in some places scarce one acre and a half wide. All vallies that are pleasant, either for their situation or the mildness of their climate, are called Tempe by the poets

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Tempe has become notorious for the poor condition of the road passing through it and for horrible accidents that have happened there.

 

And Tempe has a link with Apollo and Orpheus - the poets with their lyres

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  • 2 weeks later...

How have we not talked about rubies in this thread???

Rhaegar and his rubies.

  1. "My queen," the big man said slowly, "all you say is true. But Rhaegar lost on the Trident. He lost the battle, he lost the war, he lost the kingdom, and he lost his life. His blood swirled downriver with the rubies from his breastplate,
  2. The day had been windy when he said farewell to Rhaegar, in the yard of the Red Keep. The prince had donned his night-black armor, with the three-headed dragon picked out in rubies on his breastplate.
  3. George said in a SSM that Rhaegar's body was burned in the traditional way of the Targaryen's. As of right now, without actual book confirmation, we have to believe that is what happened to Rhaegar's body.

Jon and his rubies.

  1. Jon was in the yard when he was stabbed... and his ruby blood flowed.
  2. Mel and her rubies and the Mance situation later.
  3. Qhorin and his ruby necklace:
    • Even when Ghost's teeth closed savagely around the ranger's calf, somehow Qhorin kept his feet. But in that instant, as he twisted, the opening was there. Jon planted and pivoted. The ranger was leaning away, and for an instant it seemed that Jon's slash had not touched him. Then a string of red tears appeared across the big man's throat, bright as a ruby necklace, and the blood gushed out of him, and Qhorin Halfhand fell.
  4. Longclaw:
    • In saving Lord Commander Jeor Mormont's life from a wight attack at Castle Black, Jon Snow sets a fire that damages Longclaw's hilt, melting silver on the bear's head pommel and burning the crossguard and grip.

      After finding the blade in the ashes of his bedchamber, Jeor has a stonecarving builder of the Night's Watch replace the hilt with one capped by a snarling wolf's head of pale stone with chips of garnet for the eyes to reflect Jon's Stark heritage. It is also weighted with lead to give better balance. Jeor gives the blade to Jon, who notes the appropriateness of a bastard wielding a bastard sword.

      • ***Melting silver on the bear's head could be a symbol of a healing anointment? The silver link in the maester's chain is for healing and medicine. There is also a link for lead, but I cannot find what it means, however, the lead in the sword is for balance... as in ice and fire? As in Targ and Stark?

      • ***The sword skinchanged from a bear to a wolf. And it is made of white stone. Could this be a reference to the "waking a dragon from stone" prophecy??? Could a funeral pyre for Jon, with Longclaw in the pyre, cause the stone to "reform" or be remade into a dragon by another stone mason, therefore waking a dragon from stone??? Mormont talks of making the bastard sword anew because of a fire. And Mormont tells Jon to take it, just like Jon has to take on the responsibility given to him when the NW brothers elected him the new LC.

        • AGOT: "The fire melted the silver off the pommel and burnt the crossguard and grip. Well, dry leather and old wood, what could you expect? The blade, now … you'd need a fire a hundred times as hot to harm the blade." Mormont shoved the scabbard across the rough oak planks. "I had the rest made anew. Take it."

      • "chips of garnet for the eyes to reflect Jon's Stark heritage. " Could this be a reference to Jon's Targaryen heritage and not the Stark heritage. Rhaegar is a red dragon and the Stark colors are grey and white. So the garnet rubies for heritage fits more with the Targ bloodline of Jon's. Later Jon describes Ghost's eyes as this, and we know Ghost is of the old gods as Jon identifies himself as later in ADWD:

        • AGOT: "Ghost was curled up asleep beside the door, but he lifted his head at the sound of Jon's boots. The direwolf's red eyes were darker than garnets and wiser than men. Jon knelt, scratched his ear, and showed him the pommel of the sword. "Look. It's you."

Discuss :cheers:

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